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This take is a tad naive. The App Store absolutely enforces Apple’s preferred position in its marketplace. Apple stifles direct competitors in media (music st

by dangus 3y ago

This take is a tad naive. The App Store absolutely enforces Apple’s preferred position in its marketplace. Apple stifles direct competitors in media (music streaming, TV/movies/video, video games, books). They force competitors like Netflix to pay obscene royalties or abstain from selling subscriptions within their apps at all. This wouldn’t be a restriction on a third party App Store. Another example: you’re not allowed to install a browser with an alternative rendering engine. Apple is forcing their browser engine to have enough marketshare so that developers won’t ignore it. Make no mistake, they absolutely would lose significant browser engine marketshare and developer attention without this arbitrary restriction because a significant amount of users would prefer to install Chrome with Chrome’s rendering engine. If Safari becomes irrelevant to the web then Apple loses economic control to competitors, it’s basically following Microsoft’s 90’s browser strategy with a little twist here. A third-party App Store would allow for consumer choice in that regard. Don’t forget that mobile games are a more lucrative market than all consoles and PCs combined, and Apple is collecting a significant chunk of that revenue via royalties for in-app purchases and advertisements in the App Store. It’s a multi-billion dollar business just for Apple. Make no mistake, this is not a side project. Apple’s services revenue is larger than Mac and iPad sales combined and has the potential for much higher operating margins.

greedo 3y ago
Apple's services revenue includes an annual lump sum payment from Google in the neighborhood of $18B per year. In 2023, that was roughly 22% of the revenue, and probably a majority of the profit.
- dangus 3y ago
  And how much less would that payment be if iOS gave you a choice of default web browsers in randomized order that leveled the playing field? That’s really my overall point here. Everything that is locked down about the iOS ecosystem helps keep that lump sum payment high. For example, you can’t add a custom search engine to the OS preferences. There’s just 5 choices. How much did it cost DuckDuckGo to get on that list? (Probably more than $0)
  - greedo 3y ago
    Chrome has been available for a long time on iOS, albeit with the Safari rendering engine. This is like complaining that the food in a hotel minibar is expensive. You want to approach the smartphone as a general purpose computer, but that's not what it is.
madeofpalk 3y ago
> because a significant amount of users would prefer to install Chrome with Chrome’s rendering engine. I'm not convinced that users care about rendering engines. Non-Safari (not non-webkit) browsers already enjoy a modicum of popularity on iOS due to offering different UI/features on top of the rendering engine.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  The biggest reason for running chrome on iOS is getting access to your Chrome password manager. I don't think web rendering engines are much of a concern, but I've never run into an issue that was web rendering related.
  - dangus 3y ago
    I’m not talking about the end user caring about browsing engine, I’m really talking about the technology risks. If Apple allows Chrome based on Chromium, Google or other tech giants could basically pull a Microsoft in the 90s and make their websites not work on Safari. “Sorry, Office Online only works on Edge” or “Gmail for web only works on Chrome” would basically snuff out Safari. By forcing everyone to use the WebKit rendering engine, iOS is a giant lever that keeps Apple relevant and influential when it comes to steering web tech and standards.
- dangus 3y ago
  You’re right, the end users don’t care. That’s not the point. The point is that forcing all iOS devices to use the WebKit rendering engine prevents competitors from closing off the web to Apple technology. E.g., Google has to make sure its mobile sites work with WebKit because they can’t just tell their iOS users to download Chrome to make it work. Any website that works for Chrome on iOS will also work for Safari because they share the WebKit browsing engine. If Google could release a version of Chrome on iOS that used its own browsing engine they could basically leave their critically popular websites broken on Safari and tell their users to download Chrome to fix it. Somewhat tangential, they could also get around the Apple App Store by leveraging the Chrome Web Store and extensions as an alternative.
cm277 3y ago
The fundamental problem is that Apple cannot have it both ways; you cannot have both a marketplace where you tax merchants in and you compete against them at the same time. If you want a cut of Spotify's revenue because you are enabling a great platform for them, awesome, but you cannot have Apple Music at the same time. If you do, your management of Spotify/Tidal/whomever should be regulated: fees capped, rights restricted, etc. Apple has tried to do this too many times (Apple Books anyone?) and only succeeded in a few places and they've usually leveraged their OS/market position to do that --see Apple Music vs Spotify. At the end of the day it's Apple's customers that get hurt (because we massively prefer Spotify over Music but are not getting a first-class experience). Same for Siri, or Mail (what a POS that is) or Notes (why can't we map the swipe-from-bottom right to a better note-taking app?). I say all of this as an Apple fan and a customer. Cut it out, stop trying to be 90s Microsoft.

by dangus 3y ago

greedo 3y ago

Apple's services revenue includes an annual lump sum payment from Google in the neighborhood of $18B per year. In 2023, that was roughly 22% of the revenue, and probably a majority of the profit.

dangus 3y ago
And how much less would that payment be if iOS gave you a choice of default web browsers in randomized order that leveled the playing field? That’s really my overall point here. Everything that is locked down about the iOS ecosystem helps keep that lump sum payment high. For example, you can’t add a custom search engine to the OS preferences. There’s just 5 choices. How much did it cost DuckDuckGo to get on that list? (Probably more than $0)
- greedo 3y ago
  Chrome has been available for a long time on iOS, albeit with the Safari rendering engine. This is like complaining that the food in a hotel minibar is expensive. You want to approach the smartphone as a general purpose computer, but that's not what it is.

madeofpalk 3y ago

> because a significant amount of users would prefer to install Chrome with Chrome’s rendering engine. I'm not convinced that users care about rendering engines. Non-Safari (not non-webkit) browsers already enjoy a modicum of popularity on iOS due to offering different UI/features on top of the rendering engine.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
The biggest reason for running chrome on iOS is getting access to your Chrome password manager. I don't think web rendering engines are much of a concern, but I've never run into an issue that was web rendering related.
- dangus 3y ago
  I’m not talking about the end user caring about browsing engine, I’m really talking about the technology risks. If Apple allows Chrome based on Chromium, Google or other tech giants could basically pull a Microsoft in the 90s and make their websites not work on Safari. “Sorry, Office Online only works on Edge” or “Gmail for web only works on Chrome” would basically snuff out Safari. By forcing everyone to use the WebKit rendering engine, iOS is a giant lever that keeps Apple relevant and influential when it comes to steering web tech and standards.
dangus 3y ago
You’re right, the end users don’t care. That’s not the point. The point is that forcing all iOS devices to use the WebKit rendering engine prevents competitors from closing off the web to Apple technology. E.g., Google has to make sure its mobile sites work with WebKit because they can’t just tell their iOS users to download Chrome to make it work. Any website that works for Chrome on iOS will also work for Safari because they share the WebKit browsing engine. If Google could release a version of Chrome on iOS that used its own browsing engine they could basically leave their critically popular websites broken on Safari and tell their users to download Chrome to fix it. Somewhat tangential, they could also get around the Apple App Store by leveraging the Chrome Web Store and extensions as an alternative.

cm277 3y ago

The fundamental problem is that Apple cannot have it both ways; you cannot have both a marketplace where you tax merchants in and you compete against them at the same time. If you want a cut of Spotify's revenue because you are enabling a great platform for them, awesome, but you cannot have Apple Music at the same time. If you do, your management of Spotify/Tidal/whomever should be regulated: fees capped, rights restricted, etc. Apple has tried to do this too many times (Apple Books anyone?) and only succeeded in a few places and they've usually leveraged their OS/market position to do that --see Apple Music vs Spotify. At the end of the day it's Apple's customers that get hurt (because we massively prefer Spotify over Music but are not getting a first-class experience). Same for Siri, or Mail (what a POS that is) or Notes (why can't we map the swipe-from-bottom right to a better note-taking app?). I say all of this as an Apple fan and a customer. Cut it out, stop trying to be 90s Microsoft.